Participation: Reality or the Promised Land? A View from South Sudan

In response to an earlier post on how-matters.org, “Sorry but it’s not YOUR project,” a reader offered the following guest post. Andebo Pax Pascal shares his experience as an aid worker in Africa’s newest country.

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My friend Tom is working for “Aid Agency X”, which has prided itself in working ‘with’ and not ‘for’ the people, a sign that it is ready to involve the community in its development projects. However, recent decisions about one of its projects became a true test for its policy of participation.

Agency X requested only a few community leaders, as representatives of the community, to sign a contract for the work to start. The few signatories did, however, offer suggestions to make some adjustments on the building to cater for a possible increase in the numbers of patients in the future. These suggestions were rejected.

In constructing the community health unit, Agency X refused to use the local inputs that the community could provide. The justification? It would be difficult in accounting to the donors.

During the handover ceremony of the health unit, Agency X’s managing director expounded on the various projects and activities the organization has implemented. He went on to emphasize the need for the community to learn to be self-reliant. The community was asked to sustain all the activities the organization had been conducting in the area since the agency would be closing its activities in the space of a year.

Unfortunately, this seems to be a typical case of a ‘poor’ community’s experience in doing development with the support of aid and development agencies. Upon hearing this story, I reflected on the concept of participation in community development as one of the pillars of implementing development projects. These are a few of my thoughts.

Photo courtesy of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (Flickr account).

Peoples’ participation in development initiatives agreeably carries with it positive connotations and concern for the real beneficiaries of development—the ‘poor.’ The concept of participation varies widely in application and definition, but the inference to ‘having a share in’ or ‘taking part in’ means participation is a practice, as well as an end in itself. It influences decisions that affect people’s lives and is an avenue of empowering the people. Participation implies two broad issues very important in development projects: (1) ownership and (2) who benefits from the project.

Participation is a development anthem whose lyrics are not patriotically respected by the professionals of development. Even though the concept has been popularized, we continue to see development practitioners telling people what has happened or is going to happen; asking questions without sharing findings; consulting people without necessarily taking their views on board; providing material incentives; and/or mobilizing people only for implementation purposes. Most projects still manipulate beneficiaries to accept outsiders’ wishes. Information is shared through one-way communication and consultations are made without serious commitment to local views.

Development practitioners must consider if a project is a development tool for the professional implementers, or for the beneficiaries. Projects should be identified, designed or formulated, and implemented in a participatory approach. This addresses the question of the sustainability of project gains. Beneficiaries should be engaged in the project right from the start in a spirit of partnership so that projects can deal with the ‘felt needs’ of the community.

Development practitioners should also consider whether they are ‘bringing development’ to a place where it has been nonexistent or whether they are supporting a desirable situation in which local efforts are already being made. Development projects can be initiated by professionals and community members acting together in partnership. However, the local people are not part of the problem, that is, poor and needy. Instead development practitioners must acknowledge that local people have a vision to change an existing undesirable situation for the better, but only lack some of the means to achieve that vision. Development practitioners can contribute to attaining that vision but in order to transform the policy of participation into real practice, a change in ideas, attitudes and practices of development practitioners is required. Meaningful participation will also require change in the methods, procedures and institutional structures of development aid agencies.

More interactive levels of participation: people doing joint analysis leading to plans; formation and utilization of local institutions and strengthening them to make and control local decisions; and generating ideas on how to maintain structures and practices, can all do a lot of good in development projects. Participation should involve self-mobilization in the community: community-initiated and shared decisions; agency-initiated activities with full community involvement at every stage; and consultation and transparent information-sharing. Local people should retain control over how resources are generated and used, and how results and successes can be sustained.

Local people may or may not have the capacity for strategic planning. However, judging from the accumulated knowledge they have and their resilience in living in their environment, people know a lot. Development professionals must tap into that knowledge to succeed in development efforts.

Will this not erode the power of the ‘expert’ professionals? This question seems to be the main obstacle in practicing genuine participation.

Are we there yet? Full participation in development practice still remains the Promised Land. And in my opinion, we have many more steps to get there.

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For further reflection, the following ideas from Feuerstein (1986) can help you assess the practice of participation in your organization:

1. When you only listen to the local opinions and then take the information away to analyze yourself – you are ‘studying the specimen’.

2. When you are sharing only part of the analyzed information with some of the stakeholders – you are ‘refusing to share results openly’.

3. When you hire an external facilitator to guide a participatory process –you are ‘locking up the expertise’.

4. When the project team sits down with the target group (to discuss plans, activities and the intended results) – they are talking about ‘partnership in development’.

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Andebo Pax Pascal is from Arua, northwestern Uganda and is currently working with the Jesuit Refugee Service in Nimule, South Sudan, where they are implementing education programmes. He can be reached at: paxande@yahoo.co.uk.